Well, I've tried all the tricks suggested here so far and I'm still having terrible trouble indoors, that's for sure. It's worse in buildings than in dungeons, but it's pretty bad no matter where I am indoors.

Someone suggested changing the "freesize" total from 500 to 1000. Would this help, and if so, how do I go about doing it? Do have to reinstall from the beginning, or can I modify DOSbox settings directly?

(Changing the "freesize" total is the only trick I haven't tried yet.)

Then explain why it is that if one play Daggerfall on a real DOS 6.22 computer (obviously not booting Windows) with 16mb of RAM, Daggerfall will create a 16-18mb large swapfile if only a 4mb swapfile (20mb total) would be needed.

It would be risky to assume any knowledge of RAM use based on a swapfile size. An app could address 1Kb RAM and have a swapfile of 20Gb if it wanted.

I have tried a ton of things and cannot get Daggerfall to run using dagger.exe due to it telling me that it looks like I inserted the wrong CD. I do tend to agree with Dr. M though, in that I have Windows create a 3GB pagefile on this system due to me having 2GB of RAM, and the pagefile contents are rarely used according to various monitoring tools, and instead Windows uses primarily my main RAM. The exception to this rule is after a few hours of Oblivion!

Svinlesha, the "freesize" parameter has to do with free hard-drive space, not memory or CPU. The configuration I use for Daggerfall is now pasted below. You may copy it if you care to try it. If it doesn't work, then I would tend to think that something is eating up your CPU. You can check this by starting Daggerfall and getting in-game, then using alt+enter to make the game windowed, and then pressing ctrl+alt+del to bring up the Task Manager and viewing the performance tab to see CPU usage. If it is pegged at 100%, your CPU is choking while running Daggerfall. You can then check the processes tab to see which programs are using CPU. If only DOSBox is using CPU, then your CPU just can't handle it, but if DOSBox is only using 50~70% of your CPU, then something else is choking it out.

[sdl]fullscreen=Truefulldouble=Truefullresolution=originalwindowresolution=originaloutput=overlayautolock=truesensitivity=200waitonerror=falsepriority=higher,normalmapperfile=mapper.txtusescancodes=true[dosbox]language=memsize=16machine=vgacaptures=..\Captures[render]frameskip=0aspect=falsescaler=normal2x[cpu]core=dynamiccycles=maxcycleup=1000cycledown=1000[mixer]nosound=falserate=44100blocksize=2048prebuffer=10[midi]mpu401=Intelligentdevice=defaultconfig=[sblaster]sbtype=sb16sbbase=220irq=5dma=1hdma=5mixer=trueoplmode=OPL3oplrate=44100[gus]gus=falsegusrate=44100gusbase=240irq1=5irq2=5dma1=3dma2=3ultradir=C:\ULTRASND[speaker]pcspeaker=truepcrate=11025tandy=autotandyrate=11025disney=false[bios]joysticktype=2axis[serial]serial1=dummyserial2=dummyserial3=disabledserial4=disabled[dos]umb=Truexms=Trueems=True[ipx]ipx=false

I hope that information and/or this code helps. Oh, and note that I use true SB16 settings, such as the SB16 using IRQ5, not IRQ7. I own three of them and they all came with the jumpers set to 5, not 7. DOSBox defaults to 7 on the SB16, unless I am mistaken, which is incorrect. The SBPro was 7.

Thanks, Seph. I'll try it when I get home.

:)

SoundBlasters can be set to 7, so that they dont cause an ISA hardware contention with the LPT port (IRQ 5 on some machines.) I usually set my LPT to 7, and the SoundBlaster to 5.

SBPro was 8 bit, and could even be set to IRQ 2/9 :ahhh:

Well... DOSbox seems to be using a lot of my CPU's resources. But I've shut down some background processes, and uninstalled Windows Defender (MsMpEng.exe was a real resource hog), and it helps a little bit.

Still, the CPU runs at 85 - 100%, on average, with DOSbox.

Ah, I despise Windows Defender and refuse to install it. Did you know that sometimes even after uninstalling WD that the msmpeng.exe application will run and eat up to 50% of a CPU? That program is broken in my book. Long live SpyBot and Symantec Corporate!

Now, you claim that the CPU is still using 85%-100% of itself while playing. Have you checked the processes to see if that 85%-100% is DOSBox.exe, or if it is another application?

Dr. M:
Yeah the LPT on my Tandy2100 and the Compaq 486 were both set to IRQ7, and since the SB16 came at IRQ5, I never had to fiddle with the jumpers. My Tandy actually came with no soundcard or modem, and I had to buy and install them both. I think I payed $100 for the SB16 and $40~$50 for the 14.4k modem!

Avast is running some kind of background server that eats a about 15000 kB. And there are a few other processes running that eat up a very small amount. But otherwise it appears to be all DOSbox.

Unfortunately.

At this point I'd have to say that either your processor is getting too hot and throttling itself, you have an OS problem, or possibly some spyware/adware that isn't showing up as a process that is eating your CPU. I say this due to DOSBox running Daggerfall on slower systems with better performance than you're reporting. I have a friend run it wide-open on a P4/1.90GHz machine with only 512MB of RDRAM, and I have run it just fine on my clunky old AMD Turion laptop at 1.60GHz. If your system is at 2.2GHz and it won't run using a dynamic core with max cycles, I have to believe one of the above scenarios.

Can you monitor your CPU temperature with a program like ASUS Probe or Intel Active Monitor? If so, run Daggerfall windowed and watch your CPU temperature. If it goes above 130f (54.44c) your CPU may be throttling, although that normally won't happen until between 140f and 160f depending on the model and what-not. If this is the case, dust out your tower and consider an after-market CPU cooler. The one I put on this P4 dropped it from throttling at 160f to a max of just under 120f! Made a huge difference in UT3.

I was having a similar program as the original poster. Where do you extract the fix save utility?

Add it to the Daggerfall game folder, then double click it to run the patch.

...

I put it in the Daggerfall folder and tried running it. It tells me to insert the game disc and press any key when I'm ready. The disc is in, but it keeps telling me I need to insert it.

The CD has to be in the same drive as you used to install the game. If you have more than one drive, that could be the problem if you put it in the wrong one.

What Wishbone said, but you can change the assignment of optical drives in device manager, unless I am mistaken. Maybe that's in 9X/ME...

Actually, another solution is that you may have set up Daggerfall to run without the CD. If so, then the z.cfg file will be looking for the CD in your installation directory - so, just edit your z.cfg pathcd line to the actual CD drive, then change it back afterwards.

Oh, yeah. That too!